Nicotiana tabacum strain:SR1 Transcriptome or Gene expression. Nicotiana tabacum strain:SR1

Plant Uncoupling mitochondrial protein 1 (UCP1) orthologous were shown to occur in plants and it has been shown to be induced by cold, salt and oxidative stress. Here we show that overexpression of UCP1 in transgenic tobacco plants induces mitochondrial biogenesis resulting in a hypoxia-reoxygenation stress that changes mitochondrial morphology and mitochondrial-nuclear communication. A typical retrograde signaling is activated inducing nuclear encoded and mitochondrial encoded proteins. Surprisingly, UCP1 overexpression caused up-regulation of an array of stresses response genes. As a consequence the UCP1 overexpressor showed increased performance under low pH, high salt, high osmotic, low temperature and oxidative stress. Our results indicate the existence of a link between mitochondrial biogenesis and stress response, a mechanism to be explored to produce crops with a broad stress tolerance.